IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1994 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Bridget Fonda, Rosie Perez, Wendell Pierce, Isaac Hayes, Stanley Tucci. Screenplay: Jane Anderson. Director: Andrew Bergman.
IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU is nice. It's about nice people who do nice things for other nice people, and how nice things happen to them as a result. It's also about not-so-nice people who do not-so- nice things, and how they are similarly rewarded. It wears its niceness so baldly on its sleeve that it's impossible to miss it. Mind you, I have nothing against niceness; heaven knows there is far too little of it portrayed in movies these days. But IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU is so busy being nice that it forgets to be interesting, resulting in a watery, flavorless little love story with a good heart.
Based (oh-so-loosely) on a real event, IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU tells the story of Charlie Lang (Nicolas Cage), a decent New York beat cop married to gold-digging beautician Muriel (Rosie Perez). One afternoon, Charlie is without sufficient money to leave a tip for down-on-her-luck diner waitress Yvonne Biasi (Bridget Fonda). To make it up to her, Charlie offers Yvonne half of whatever winnings he might receive from the lottery ticket he is holding. The ticket turns out to be a $4 million winner, making Yvonne's cut $2 million. This development goes over not at all well with Muriel, who begins to make life even more miserable for Charlie, and soon Charlie and Yvonne find they have more in common than their new fortune.
IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU was originally titled COP GIVES WAITRESS $2M TIP, and it was then that I should have smelled trouble. Tri-Star clearly wanted to play up the story as a fairly tale, and from the opening shot of New York City's skyline being revealed through removed laundry, you know that's what you've got. There seems to have been a desire to make a "decent guy fights the system" comedy, something that would inspire that much mis-used adjective "Capra-esque." However, one wonders whether anyone involved in IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU ever saw a Frank Capra film. The Capra heroes played by James Stewart, Gary Cooper and others were not spotless, just basically good folks struggling to do the right thing. Nicolas Cage's Charlie, on the other hand, is too good for sainthood, helping blind people across busy intersections, playing stickball with neighborhood kids and intoning "a promise is a promise" at regular intervals. I almost wondered whether the nice guy character was being mocked. Bridget Fonda is nearly as angelic, though she is given a tough background to overcome and an endearing fatalism. She does a lot of interesting things with her performance, and has a standout scene where she first registers her good fortune, dispensing free ice cream to all of her customers. Fonda and Cage are two likable actors, but ultimately there is not a drop of tension in their relationship. They're too perfect _not_ to end up together.
That's a real disappointment, because I expect better from Andrew Bergman. He has written or co-written some of the funniest and quirkiest screenplays of the last twenty years, including BLAZING SADDLES, THE IN-LAWS and THE FRESHMAN, and directed last year's enjoyable HONEYMOON IN VEGAS. He is working here with a screenplay by Jane Anderson, who also showed a sharp wit with THE POSITIVELY TRUE ADVENTURES OF THE ALLEGED TEXAS CHEERLEADER MURDERING MOM for HBO. Both of them should know better. Comedy requires some kind of edge to get it rolling, whether it's situation or character, and IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU has neither. At its best, it produces a few smiles.
At its worst, Rosie Perez is on screen. As the "villain" of the film, Perez plays Muriel as an unrepentant shrew-from-hell, and it's the kind of part where she's in the most trouble. Her voice, somewhat grating in its most tolerable moments, skyrockets into dog whistle range when she browbeats Cage. It is a performance so annoying that even had IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU been satisfying on all other counts, she might have spoiled the experience singlehandedly.
There's nothing wrong with fairy tale love stories; BEAUTY AND THE BEAST was one of the most romantic film experiences of the decade so far. But those animated characters were more real than anyone in IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 happy endings: 3.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University Office of the General Counsel
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